ABBOTSFORD — In a manner of speaking, you could call the last season’s edition of the Fraser Valley Cascades men’s basketball team a group of long shots.

In a literal sense, the tag certainly doesn’t fit one of the CIS’ rising programs, but if you ask head coach Barnaby Craddock about it, he’ll tell you that adversity makes teams adopt new personas in a hurry.

On the eve of the 2010-11 season, the Cascades had the extreme misfortune of losing their two toughest inside players — Jasper Moedt and Kyle Grewal — to season-ending ACL injuries and that forced Fraser Valley to shoot the three-point shot like it was their own, personal invention.

“We’ve always had the guys to do it, but last season we had to do it out of neccessity,” explained Craddock of a Cascades team which fashioned a 10-14 finish in the Canada West and pushed eventual national runner-up Trinity Western to the limit in its opening-round playoff series. “We had to play to our strengths.”

With Grewal and Moedt now back and healthy, and an impressive preseason behind them, the Cascades head into Friday’s Canada West home-opening doubleheader against Kamloops’ host Thompson Rivers WolfPack a lot more wiser, stronger and adapatable than they’ve ever been. And with that promise has comes a CIS No. 7 national ranking, which besides being the first national nod in the history of the program, is one of the first signs that the Cascades are now ready to consistently stand on even ground with their more established rivals like UBC and Trinity Western.

The Cascades under Craddock — who played under UBC head coach Kevin Hanson at Langara in the early 1990s — have steadily built their core of talent, especially as it has pertained to recruiting B.C.’s top graduating players over the past number of seasons. And the patient process of building with youth seems ready to begin paying dividends this season with guards Joel Friesen (16.6 ppg) and Sam Freeman (14.8 ppg) ready to hit their stride as third- and fourth-year leaders respectively.

“So now it’s a test on them to see how far they want to step up and how far they want to take the program,” Craddock said. “Now they are not the rookies anymore and we have expectations on them to perform. But those guys are a pleasure to coach and I think they’re going to have big seasons.”

And what is perhaps most enticing about the possibilities with the 2011-12 Cascades is the effectiveness with which they were able to shoot the three-ball without having the space-eating presence inside of Grewal and Moedt last season.

Without being able to play off the defensive attention a post game warrants, Fraser Valley hoisted 733 of its 1,567 field goal attempts from outside the arc and hit on 279 of them for a remarkable 38 per cent, good enough for second best in the conference. The makes and takes were both CIS records.

To put that number in perspective, UBC took 219 fewer threes and finished first with a field goal percentage on per cent higher at 39.

And while the heavy reliance on the long ball contributed to a 10-14 regular season, it is now such an ingrained part of the team’s persona, that Fraser Valley knows it can play it physical inside and be lethal from the outside.

James York, a transfer from Montana Tech, and Klaus Figueiredo, a transfer from Edmonton’s NAIT, have been brought in this season to fill the shoes of departed point guard Zeon Gray with veteran Sheldon Bjorgaard is also expected to play a big role in the backcourt.

And pure freshman Jordan Blackman, a 6-foot-6 guard and product of the same Yale Secondary program in Abbotsford that produced Friesen, Bjorgaard and Moedt, has flashed moments of highlight reel play in the preseason.

“There is zero chance of him red-shirting,” Craddock laughs when asked of Blackman. “We knew he can impact the game on the offensive end and he will play a role coming off the bench for us.”

And having Friesen to battle against on the floorin practice and confer with off the floor is an ideal mentoring situation.

“Those two have a great relationship and Jordan gets to learn from Joel every day in practice,” notes Craddock. “That is a perfect environment to learn from a guy who is a conference all-star. No one is going to put a cap on Jordan Blackman.”

Red-shirt rookie Spencer Evans, who had an excellent career at Pitt Meadows, along with Mike James, a Winnpeg product, will also contribute.

Yet with all the excitement of the preseason ranking, Craddock is keeping it all in perspective.

“We are well aware that rankings like this have to be earned through conference play,” he says. “And if we end up being a top 10 team in Canada, it will be because we earned it.”

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